How To Read A 223-Page Novel In Just 77 Minutes

Friday

Feb 28, 2014 at 3:31 PM

Jim Edwards

Spritz is a company that makes a speed-reading technology which allows you to get through a mass of text, reading every word, in a fraction of the time it would take if you were turning the pages of a book or swiping through a Kindle.

The basis of Spritz concept is that much of the time spend reading is "wasted" on moving your eyes from side to side, from one word to the next. By flashing the words quickly, one after the other, all in the same place, eye movement is reduced almost to zero. All that's left is the time you take to process the word before the next one appears.

The company is selling licenses for other companies who might want to use the technology in operating systems, applications, wearables, and websites. Obviously, the tiny screen of a smart watch instantly springs to mind.

But the real revelation of Spritz is in trying it yourself.

Here's a line of text going by at 250 words per minute:

Now try the same thing at 350 words per minute:

And now try 500 words per minute:

A college-level reader tends to read at between 200 and 400 a minute, according to HuffPost. Using Spritz, if you can handle 1,000 words per minute, you'd only need 77 minutes to complete the first Harry Potter book (which is 223 pages long).

The company's blog — which can also be read via Spritz — explains that the placement of the word is key. Each word isn't simply centered in the Spritz box. Rather, it's placed optimally so that as little eye-movement is needed as possible. The only thing that limits comprehension at that point if your personal cognitive ability to recognize words and process their meaning.

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